Poster Competition Ebook

The ebook of our International Poster Competition is now online! You can find it here: http://www.lifejustisfilm.com/life_just_is_poster_ebook.pdf. To help celebrate the work of all the entrants, we'd love for as many people as possible to see it, so please do help us spread the link around in any way you can. Thanks!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Justine once again for all her hard work on the competition, and for assembling the ebook. Thanks Justine!

- Alex

Life's Just Networking Photographs, March 2011

Some photographs from our March event. Photography by Nana Green.

Filmmaker Andy Poyiadgi doing some networking while the place fills up.

'Life Just Is' Writer/Director and LJN host Alex Barrett doing his intro.

Andy Poyiadgi (left) talks about his film 'Schizofredric'.

Miriam Rowe talks about her 'Home Grown Stories' Project.

Peter Davies talks about his film 'I Am What I Am'.

Alex getting all excited during Peter Davies' QA by Peter's reference to Béla Tarr's 'Sátántangó'.

The Fabulous Poo Brothers talking about their film 'Gasp'.

Fabulous Poo Brother Andrzej Sosnowski during his QA.

Filmmaker James Rumsey (who screened at LJN in March and May 2010), returns once again to do some networking.

Watching the presentations.

Russell Thomas Owen talks about his upcoming feature 'Welcome to the Majority'.

Andy Poyiadgi talks about his new projects.

Peter Davies presents his new project to the crowd.

Wezley Joao Ferreira gives an impromptu presentation about his work as DIT.

'Life Just Is' cast member Anna Brook enjoys doing some networking.

The Fabulous Poo Brothers doing some networking after their screening.

Alex with 'Life Just Is' 1st AD Alice Caronna.

'Life Just Is' Production Assistant and LJN Doorman Roland Holmes with LJI Executive Producer Christine Hartland.

'Life Just Is' soundman Jason Creasey (left) with writer/director Alex Barrett (right).

Teaching Aide

As regular readers of this blog will know, two of the main aims of our production process (besides the making of the film itself) have been to be as open as possible about what we've been doing, and to actively engage with our growing community. Yes, this is ultimately about promotion and building an audience for the finished film, but I hope that it's also something more, hence my use of the word 'community'. People that come to our networking events will know the vibe I'm talking about, but I hope that people belonging to our online following do too...it's about open dialogue and sharing experiences and creativity. Indeed, one of the reasons why I've written so openly about the process of making the film is that I want to share my creative experience with others in the hope that they will find something interesting and, even better, something useful in what I've been through.

This week I was invited to take this to the next level, when Peter Harmer of Anglia Ruskin University asked me to contribute to a session he was giving to his second year Film Studies students. The session focused on preproduction, and I was able to contribute a first-hand case study, talking about the making of Life Just Is and using material such as our storyboards to illustrate what I was saying. The session seemed to go well, and I hope that the students enjoyed hearing about the film and getting a special sneak-peak of a couple of scenes.

Following on very nicely from this, yesterday I received a phonecall from Marvin Belle, who some of you might know as the editor of Directors Notes. As he later explained in a message written for this blog post:

I was tasked with teaching a session on creating promotional materials for the third year Media Production & Media Studies students at Chichester University. As an element of this focussed on poster creation with Adobe's InDesign, I asked Alex if we could use the recent Life Just Is poster competition as the basis.

The students hadn't ever touched InDesign or Photoshop before the two hour session - here are the best three of the final posters from Hayley Cummines, Jessica Brown & Leanne Prince.

You can find the posters below, and many thanks to Hayley, Jessica and Leanne for letting us share their work.

I'm very excited by the fact that the material we're putting out there is proving useful in a context such as this. (It's not the only example: back in January I corresponded with a tutor from Wales about something that Murat and I had discussed in one of our Vlogs, something which he was thinking of suggesting to his students.)

The reason why this all excites me is because it helps me feel like we're achieving our aim of providing information which people can get something from...which comes back to that community vibe I was talking about earlier. Hopefully that's something which will continue to grow, and to flourish, as the project progresses further. I'm aware you're all due an update on the project itself, and you can expect a piece in the not-too-distant future detailing both what Murat and I have been working on, and the way we've been working on it.

In the meantime, if anyone wants further information about anything that's been said in any of our posts or videos, or would be interested in having either me or one of the team come and give a talk, please feel free to drop me a line on alex*at*lifejustisfilm.com.

- Alex

Design by Leanne Prince

Design by Hayley Cummines

Design by Jessica Brown